“But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses.”
-Exodus 9:12

“But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the LORD had said.”
-Exodus 8:15

This is one of those classic, difficult episodes in the Bible which finds its concentrated battlefield in Romans 9 where Paul succinctly states that God has “mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.”  (verse 18)  So…which is it?  Did God harden Pharoah’s heart because Pharoah hardened it first?  Or did Pharaoh harden his heart as a result of God’s hardening it?  I’ve long since learned that the wrong approach to answering any question like this is to focus on one set of verses that support your conclusion while ignoring those which seem to contradict it.  The Bible explicitly states both truths in the question at hand.  God is said to be the hardener of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus 4:21, 9:12, 10:1, 11:10, 14:4, and 14:8.  But its said that Pharaoh hardened his own heart in Exodus 8:15, 8:32, and 9:34.  Both are true.  But this begs a really, really, REALLY weighty question: which came first?  (For the sake of clarity, it is clear that both Pharaoh and God had a role to play in hardening Pharaoh’s heart.  For the purposes of this entry, whenever I refer to Pharaoh hardening his heart or God hardening Pharaoh’s heart, I’m referring to the one who hardened first, i.e. the reason for the hardened heart.)

From the content of Romans 9 (along with more numerous examples), it is definitely understandable why one side would see the scales tipping in the direction of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart.  Romans 9:14-18 for example doesn’t exactly leave a taste in your mouth of God acting in response the actions of a historical figure but rather determining by his own will how that figure will play into his own pre-ordained course of history.  Yet that doesn’t exactly seem fair.  It seems to impugn our free will and relegate us to puppets.  God obviously holds us accountable for our actions, and again, Scripture does also say that Pharaoh hardened his heart.  Hence the reason for the other side which says that as beings accountable for our actions, God can only have hardened Pharaoh’s heart as a result of Pharaoh’s free, willing, and sinful choice to harden his own heart by disobeying God.  So here we have two sides with valid points and each with Scriptures to back it up.  Again, which is it?

Honestly, I don’t believe the question of which came first even matters.  “How can you say that?  Of course it’s important!” one might respond.  After all, if God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, then there are tremendous implications about God’s sovereignty.  Not only does he guide history according to his own pleasure, but included in this guidance is his choice over who will or will not be saved.  On the other hand, if Pharaoh hardened his heart, this would seem to make man the ultimate determiner of his eternal destiny.  This side says that Pharaoh must, like every other person in the world, choose God of his own free-will.  God can’t force him to make a choice, lest it cease to be a choice.  Therefore, Pharaoh freely chose to reject God, and only then did God respond by hardening Pharaoh’s heart.  These are two very different options, so where do I get the idea that who hardened this guy’s heart is ultimately irrelevant to the issue at hand?  Because whichever side you land on, whichever path you choose to walk on, I think you’re bound to end up at the same destination.

Let’s say that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.  God spoke to him through Moses, commanding him to let his people go and Pharaoh, through his own free will, chose to say no.  God gave him several more chances to obey but he refused to do so.  So as a result, after numerous offerings to repent, God decides to harden the heart of Pharaoh.  Now at this point it must be asked what that means.  In what way does God harden hearts?  I like the way Jonathan Edwards puts it:

“When God is here spoken of as hardening some of the children of men, it is not to be understood that God by any positive efficiency hardens any man’s heart. There is no positive act in God, as though he put forth any power to harden the heart. To suppose any such thing would be to make God the immediate author of sin. God is said to harden men in two ways: by withholding the powerful influences of his Spirit, without which their hearts will remain hardened, and grow harder and harder; in this sense he hardens them, as he leaves them to hardness. And again, by ordering those things in his providence which, through the abuse of their corruption, become the occasion of their hardening.”

So God didn’t actively create unbelief in Pharaoh’s heart.  He either withheld his own influence from Pharaoh, or he orchestrated circumstances in which Pharaoh would harden his heart.  To illustrate the latter, the Puritans had a great saying: “The same sun that melts the ice hardens the clay.”  In other words, preaching the Gospel will melt the hearts of some causing them to believe, and it will further aggravate others and drive them further from God.  Both elements of hardening that Edwards mentions are probably at work here.  God withholds himself from Pharaoh, and sends Moses to preach to him and further harden the clay.

Of course, Edwards’ explanation of how God hardens hearts rests on a large assumption: that man, on his own, without God’s influence, will not choose God.  And I do mean “will not,” as in “no possible way.”  This certainly flies in the face of popular opinion concerning free will both in the church and in the public sphere.  I’ve often heard that God is voting for me and Satan is voting against me, but I am the one who must cast the deciding vote.  But this too rests on a large assumption.  It assumes that man is essentially a blank slate, with equal capacity for choosing God and choosing what is against God.  The Bible isn’t so optimistic though.  Paul for example writes that “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.” (Romans 8:7)  Even our wills and desires are corrupted by sin, so we can’t just choose God on a whim.  We must choose him because we want him, but wanting him is the obstacle.

I have no real problem with saying that Pharaoh hardened his own heart first and that God in turn responded by hardening Pharaoh in that he gave him exactly what he wanted.  But here’s why I believe that the question that titles this entry is ultimately irrelevant: the passage isn’t so much concerned with how Pharaoh got a hard heart as it is with what God did in response.  However it is that we harden our hearts, even if we have done so by the unrestrained, unbridled exercise of our autonomous wills, God doesn’t have to rescue us.  If we reject him, he can do what he did with Pharaoh and abandon us to our own selfish ways.  Or in his incredible mercy he can choose to intervene and give us a new heart which does desire him.  We are all born sinners, hostile to God and his ways and without desire to turn from our ways and surrender to him.  All we can do in response to God is harden our hearts, for how can we want him whom we hate?

All have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).  We are all in a sense Pharaoh.  However we got a hard heart is irrelevant to the question at hand.  The point is that a hard heart we have, and therefore we need help.  God can harden our hearts by giving us exactly what we want causing us to drift further and further away from him.  Or he can have mercy and collide with us.  Whatever he does he does out of his own good pleasure.  To say this all in another way: the point isn’t how we got ourselves into the mess we’re in.  The point is that God alone gets people out of it by his own mercy which he can choose to have or not.  We have only ourselves to blame for our separation from God, and we have only God to praise for our reunion with him.  If you believe that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart only as a result of Pharaoh hardening it first, you still have to swallow the fact that God could have had mercy on him, but he chose not to (Romans 9:18).  To those who have hardened their hearts (all of us), God can choose to have mercy on us or to further harden us.  Salvation is God’s gift to dispense as he will.  We can’t comprehend it.  It’s offensive to our sensibilities.  But it’s actually pretty liberating when we accept it.

If you know him, praise him for having mercy on you.  If you don’t but you want to, praise him for taking the first step and putting that want in you.  Then confess that Jesus is God’s own Son, sent into the world to be the penalty for your sins so that you won’t have to suffer for them.  Confess that Jesus’ righteousness is the righteousness that makes you acceptable to God so that you reap the rewards of the one man who lived a perfect life.  All who come to God through Jesus will be welcomed by God in Jesus.  He’ll turn none away.

“So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.”
-Romans 9:18

“‘All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.’”
-John 6:37

__________________________________________

A Couple O’ Extra Thoughts

There’s a couple o’ thoughts I want to throw on here for clarification.

1.  I intentionally shied away from using the term above, but the theology I promote in this entry is straight-up, unapologetic Calvinism.  I believe that a lot of the American Church’s rejection of Calvinism (though it has certainly been on the rise in recent years due to popular preachers like John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller, and Matt Chandler) is due to a misunderstanding of what it really teaches.  That was my case before I came to accept it as biblical.  I tried to smooth some of those misconceptions out in this entry, but feel free to check out an entry I wrote a while back specifically addressing them.

2.  I talk more about this in the link posted under the first point, but God’s determination of who he will and will not save does not negate choice.  In hardening sinners, God leaves them to a life of choosing whatever their sinful hearts desire.  In having mercy on sinners, God gives them new hearts which desire him and thus freely choose him.  The idea that Calvinism means God saves people against their will or that some people who follow Jesus don’t get into heaven because they aren’t on God’s “elect list” is a distortion of what Calvinism really teaches.  God will NEVER turn away a sinner who repents.

3.  Loraine Boettner wrote down in a helpful paragraph what I’ve fleshed out into a couple of pages here:

“The hearts of the wicked are, of course, never hardened by the direct influence of God, – He simply permits some men to follow out the evil impulses which are already in their hearts, so that, as a result of their own choices, they become more and more calloused and obstinate.  And while it is said, for instance, that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, it is also said that Pharaoh hardened his own heart…One description is given from the divine view-point, the other is given from the human view-point.  God is ultimately responsible for the hardening of the heart in that He permits it to occur, and the inspired writer in graphic language simply says that God does it; but never are we to understand that God is the immediate and efficient cause.”

It never ceases to surprise me when talking with Christians I’ve just met or have run into after a long hiatus how easily the conversation turns to the controversial topic of predestination, or just Calvinism in general.  “Wow, so you’re in school, have a dog, and you’re not a Calvinist.  Sounds like things are going good!”  I personally became a Calvinist in a coffee shop three years ago and haven’t looked back.  It’s something I relish reading books on, and something I love to discuss assuming it’s done so in a loving environment.

Recently I’ve been very aware of many of the misconceptions about the Calvinist interpretation of Scripture, misconceptions that I oftentimes take for granted because they’re no longer things I’m struggling with.  Among its opponents, Calvinism is sometimes treated fairly but is more often than not caricatured (though usually not on purpose).  What is often thought to be Calvinism is actually what is called “Hyper-Calvinism,” something that is blatantly unscriptural.  Below are some points I hope will clear up confusion for some Christians by showing what Calvinism is NOT.  I don’t intend for these points to be exhaustive.  I could write and talk forever about each one of these points on their own.  Rather, I hope what follows will at least clear up some of the confusion about Calvinism that is so rampant among its dissenters and perhaps inspire fruitful discussion.

1.  Calvinism does not negate John 3:16.

If you’re banking on verses like this one and others that say that ANYONE who trusts in Christ will be saved as an argument against Calvinism, you’re not understanding what Calvinism is.  The caricature is this: God predestines only some to eternal life.  So you could be an incredible saint but if you’re not one of his elect, sucks for you.  Conversely, you could spend your whole life in extreme immorality and yet, because you’re one of God’s elect, you lucked out and get to go to heaven!  In other words, God saves some against their will and flat-out rejects some who believe in him as savior.

Of course, that is very plainly not what the Bible teaches.  I take the “whosoever” of John 3:16 as serious as any Arminian.  Christ will never reject anyone who comes to him.  “And whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37b).  But what goes on behind the scenes of this?  What causes a person to want to come to Christ?  The first part of the verse tells us: “All that the Father gives me will come to me” (John 6:37a).  Everyone who comes to Christ will be saved, and everyone who does this does it as a result of God the Father’s giving them to Jesus.

2.  Calvinism Does not Deny Choice

True Calvinism does not crumble under the reality of the individual’s choice.  To believe in choice is not antithetical to God’s predestinating certain individuals to salvation.  That they are opposed is based on an assumption Scripture does not warrant, an assumption summarized well by the classic statement: “God votes for you, Satan votes against you,  and you cast the deciding vote.”  The assumption is that man is a blank slate with equal forces pulling him in two different directions.  But the Bible, particularly Paul, is not this optimistic about the human condition.  In Romans 8:7 he writes: “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.”  Writing to Timothy, he describes the unbeliever as being in “the snare of the devil…captured by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26).  We’re enslaved by Satan and we don’t have the luxury to say “Hmmm, think I’ll choose Christ.”

The Bible is clear that EVERYTHING in a person, including the desires and the will is subject to the heart, the ultimate source (Proverbs 4:23).  Proverbs 21:1 is a helpful verse for this discussion.  It says “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.”  The Bible’s understanding of the heart is that it is a flowing stream.  But God can and does redirect the way the stream flows.  By so doing, he’s not actively pushing the water (because it flows freely), but rather is redirecting the channel to himself.

The water flows freely within the channel.  God doesn’t force us to believe in him but graciously redirects the flow of our hearts- which were flowing towards sin- towards himself.  In so doing we gladly, not grudgingly, respond positively to Christ.  This is totally the work of God.  Augustine well said that God chooses us not because we believe, but so that we may believe.  And do remember that the essence of the New Covenant inaugurated by Christ is that God gives us completely new hearts (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

3.  Calvinism does not fully adhere to one man’s theology, namely John Calvin.

I was a “Calvin”ist at least a good year before I ever sat down and read anything by Calvin that wasn’t just a quote.  I’ve still read relatively little of his works, but I do have his “Institutes” which I hope to get to in the next couple of years, as well as a few of his bible commentaries which I love to turn to.  I love what I’ve read from him so far, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m a disciple of John Calvin.  The historical particulars of why Calvin’s name got slapped onto a theology far older than himself is something that is currently unknown to me.  While I trust the man, I subject his teachings to the same scriptural scrutiny that I would give to any theologian.

4.  Calvinism does not negate evangelism.

I remember being in my car when it dawned on me that evangelism and missions was a crippling blow to the theology of Calvinism.  “Dude…” is what I think I said, “If God’s predestined people to be saved, then he wouldn’t have been so adamant about preaching the Gospel!  Checkmate!”

But by that same time the next year, I realized  there was still a move to be made.  This is similar to the misconception I mentioned in the first point.  God chooses whom he will save.  But we must repent of our sins in order to be saved.  Therefore, if God is irrevocably choosing who he will save, he is essentially ensuring that this repentance will take place.  The classic Calvinist phraseology on this point is this: God does not only ordain the end, but also the means.  God has called us to preach the Gospel, because that preaching is the means God has chosen to bring his sheep into the fold (Romans 1:16, John 10:16, Romans 10:14).  When you diminish the ordained means of salvation, you end up with hyper-Calvinism.  When you diminish the ordained end of salvation, you end up with Arminianism.  But when you uphold both and understand that God has sovereignly chosen to save a people by causing them to willingly choose him, that is Calvinism.

5.  Calvinism does not negate prayer.

Very similar to the last point.  God has not only ordained the ends, but the means as well, and prayer is one his greatest means of accomplishing his purposes.  The absolute best description of this I’ve yet to hear comes from Charles Spurgeon:  “Our prayers are God’s decrees in another shape.  The prayers of God’s people are but God’s promises breathed out of living hearts, and those promises are the decrees, only put into another form and fashion.  Do not say, ‘How can my prayers affect the decrees of God?’  They cannot, except to the degree that your prayers are decrees, and that as they come out, every prayer that is inspired of the Holy Ghost in your soul is as omnipotent and as eternal as that decree which said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light’ (Gen.1:3).”

I believe it was Martin Luther who well said that prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, but laying hold of his willingness.  The idea is that we’re not persuading God to do things through prayer, but rather we’re bringing those things about through those prayers.  For example, God does not save a man because he (God) has been convinced through prayer to save him.  Instead he has appointed those prayers to be the means by which he saves that man.  “But,” you might object, “that seems like a needless formality for God to choose to do things only in response to prayer.”  Yet this is a “formality” that pervades the entirety of one’s prayer life, not one that is unique to prayers of salvation.  For God knows what we need before we ask (Matthew 6:8).  Before we even say anything, he knows it (Psalm139:4).  Therefore, as A.W. Pink writes, “Prayer is not appointed for the furnishing of God with the knowledge of what we need, but it is designed as a confession to Him of our sense of the need…God requires that His gifts should be sought for.  He designs to be honoured by our asking, just as He is to be thanked by us after He has bestowed His blessing.”

6.  Calvinism does not make God the author of evil.

But it does put him in control of it.  I once had someone counter Calvinism by making this claim.  And then to throw out the trump card he asked if Hitler killing six million Jews was part of God’s plan.  That’s a very good and sensitive quesion, namely how God’s sovereignty and evil correlate.  How we treat the question depends entirely upon the motives of the one asking.  Some genuinely want to know.  Some throw out the question in order to clinch the debate once and for all.  But to acknowledge this difficulty and ask how it’s possible is nothing that hasn’t been asked before…by the Bible itself.  This is the same question Habakkuk wrestled with.  How could God use sinful people to bring judgment on his people?  His eyes are too pure to look on evil, right?  God may use evil to further his purposes, but that doesn’t mean he’s condoning it.  Rather he’s giving it the biggest slap in the face by turning it to accomplish the exact opposite of what it wants.

Joseph’s brothers selling him to slave-traders turned out to unite that family big-time and ended up saving a whole lot of people.  God himself became flesh and was sinfully crucified in order to bring salvation to his children.  God uses it for righteousness’ sake, and in the end he will punish those who carry it out.

“The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.”
-Proverbs 21:1

I read something which I found to be very interesting in Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan” concerning free-will and necessity:

“Liberty and Necessity are Consistent: As in the water, that has not only liberty, but a necessity of descending by the Channel: so likewise in the Actions which men voluntarily do; which (because they proceed from their will) proceed from liberty; and yet because every act of man’s will, and every desire, and inclination proceeds from some cause, and that from another cause, which causes in a continual chain (whose first link in the hand of God the first of all causes) proceed from necessity.  So that to him that could see the connection of those causes, the necessity of all men’s voluntary actions, would appear manifest.  And therefore God, that sees, and disposes all things, sees also that the liberty of man in doing what he will, is accompanied with the necessity of doing that which God will, and no more, no less.  For though men may do many things, which God does not command, nor is therefore Author of them; yet they can have no passion, nor appetite to any thing, of which appetite God’s will is not the cause.  And did not his will assure the necessity of man’s will, and consequently of all that on man’s will depends, the liberty of men would be a contradiction, and impediment to the omnipotence and liberty of God.  And this shall suffice, (as to the matter in hand) of that natural liberty, which only is properly called liberty.”*

I was floored by how well these two issues are here reconciled, and I love that he uses the analogy of man’s will and a channel of water.  I first heard this analogy from Matthew Henry, in his commentary on Proverbs 21:1-

“Even the hearts of men are in God’s hand.  God can change men’s minds, can turn them from that which they seemed most intent upon, as the husbandman, by canals and gutters, turns the water through his grounds, which does not alter the nature of the water, nor put any force upon it, any more than God’s providence does upon the native freedom of man’s will, but directs the course of it to serve his own purpose.”

And to honor the other namesake of Bill Watterson’s classic comic strip, here’s John Calvin:

“Now when I assert that the will, being deprived of its liberty, is necessarily drawn or led into evil, I should wonder if anyone considered it as a harsh expression, since it has nothing in it absurd, nor is it unsanctioned by the custom of good men. It offends those who know not how to distinguish between necessity and compulsion. But if anyone should ask them whether God is not necessarily good, and whether the devil is not necessarily evil, what answer will they make? For there is such a close connection between the goodness of God and His divinity that His deity is not more necessary than His goodness. But the devil is by his fall so alienated from communion with all that is good that he can do nothing but what is evil…if a necessity of doing well impairs not the liberty of the divine will in doing well if the devil, who cannot but do evil, nevertheless sins voluntarily; who then will assert that man sins less voluntarily, because he is under a necessity of sinning?”

Water freely flows within its boundaries.  A train freely runs along its track.  Likewise our hearts freely run according to their desires, whatever they may be.  Proverbs 4:23 instructs us to “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”  The consistent theme in the Bible with regard to the heart is this: you are what your heart is.  You will know a tree by its fruit (Matthew 12:33).  We are not free to grow fruit which our root doesn’t produce.  It’s not so much a matter of freedom as it is of ability.  I’ve often used the example of the human body.  Healthy individuals have free-will over their bodies.  They can clap their hands, jump up and down, run, swim, scream, whisper, etc…  At the same time, they can’t breathe underwater.  They can’t fly on their own power.  The free-will a person may have over their body is not absolute.  It’s confined.

As long as Christians try to define “free-will” in absolutist, autonomous terms, they will never truly understand their own salvation.  The hearts of every man, woman, and child on this earth are bound to either sin or God.  Popular theology teaches that God is voting for us, Satan is voting against us, and we must cast the deciding vote.  The idea is that man is a blank slate, inclined more to Satan maybe, but ultimately the master of his own desires.  Paul speaks in harsher terms though when he writes that “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Romans 8:7).  The unsaved heart is not indifferent to God.  It’s hostile to him. It’s at enmity with him, filled with hatred towards him.  We are not compelled to hate him.  We hate him of necessity.  From the heart flow the springs of life, and from the evil heart flow the springs of hostility towards God.  As a human body equipped without gills cannot breathe underwater, neither can the natural heart desire God.

People have often wondered if Jesus can truly be considered “human” if he was unable to sin, but they’re asking the wrong question.  Man looks at Christ’s sinless life as an alienation from true humanity.  God calls us to look at Christ’s sinless life and lament over our alienation from what it truly means to be human.  God created Adam and Eve and called them “Good.”  He sent his son Jesus Christ to dwell in an earthly body, yet without sin.  Humanity is meant to be inherently good.  And one day it will be again.  Ideal humanity doesn’t carry with it autonomy.  Many speak of life in Christ in terms of “freedom,” and while this is true, many don’t understand what this freedom constitutes.  Our freedom in Christ still involves slavery.  Paul writes “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:17-18).  Christ frees us from slavery to sin to become slaves of righteousness.  Many would abhor the use of the slavery concept here, but slavery is only as repulsive as its master.  What kind of slavery does Christ enlist us to?  Himself.  Righteousness.  Love.  Joy.  Peace.  Patience.  Kindness.  Goodness.  Faithfulness.  Gentleness.  Self-Control.  What problems would disappear from our planet if every human was bound of necessity to practice these qualities?

Slavery is freedom if the Master gives his slaves what is most beneficial and joyful to them.  The freedom to withdraw yourself from such infinite blessing would not be viewed as a good thing, but as an ominous threat.  Will we be free in Heaven?  Yes.  Will we be able to sin?  No.  Again, nothing can do anything other than what nature necessitates and limits it to do.  Notice what Paul praises in Romans 6:17: the Roman Christians’ obedience from the heart.  Heart obedience is true obedience, and true obedience is evidence of God’s liberating work in a person’s life.  Our natural hearts can’t and won’t love God.  So how does God ensure that we are effectually drawn to him and will forever be set on doing his will?  New hearts.  Hearts naturally predisposed to love him and do his will.  This is the Covenant God makes with man through Jesus Christ.  “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).  “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.  And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33).  “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them.  And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (Jeremiah 32:40).

This is the great focus point of Calvinism: action according to the necessity of the will.  This is the standard of Christianity: purity at action’s source, the heart.  This is why Jesus tells us that in God’s eyes, hatred is the same thing as murder, and that lust is the same thing as adultery.  As Charles Spurgeon says, God counts heart sin as well as hand sin.  Our hearts flow freely in their channels.  May God direct the channels of your heart toward himself and to a servant-hood of freedom and joy both now and in the age to come.

* “Leviathan.”  Part II, Chapter 21.  Spelling updated by me.

I found this GREAT quote in another blog that I felt compelled to share.  The word “EXACTLY,” preferably followed by exclamation is the best response I can give to it.

“For those who have grown up under the prevailing teaching in American churches (I mean Arminianism), Reformation theology often comes across as unusual. Even when it does not, it is often passed off as a peripheral issue. “I don’t care how I was saved, I just care that I was saved,” is a common response from those who assume that they can know that they were saved when they don’t know how. This is no side issue, however. Wrong principles on this issue will always lead to disaster, in this life if by grace not in the next.

If you want to discover just how pervasive Arminian principles are, just check to see how many clear biblical passages you have been systematically taught to misinterpret. How many times has the verse “Behold I stand at the door and knock…” (Rev. 3:20) been taken to be Christ standing at the door of our hearts asking us if we will let him save us, when it is Christ standing at the door to the church in Laodicea? How often have we heard that “God has voted for us, Satan has voted against us, and we cast the deciding vote” when Romans 8:31 teaches that if God is for us who can be against us? We are told to make a decision for Christ, but we say that we do not want to be bothered with hearing about what he has decided about us.

If the introduction to Reformation theology is causing some grief, do not be surprised. That is normal. To find out that God has no interest in allowing our destiny to remain in our hands is a scary thought when we trust ourselves more than God. It might cause sleepless nights. It might inspire heated arguments. We might wish to avoid these for the sake of love-but love of what? Certainly not God. God is the primary one to whom we relate, and he will not have one of his creatures loved above Himself. To avoid dealing with central questions concerning salvation out of love is not spiritual, it is carnal. Any time spent on these issues will be worthily spent.

Read about these things. Do not assume that since these arguments have been going on for centuries, there must be no solution. You might be surprised to find that at least at the level of basic principles, the Bible is quite clear. The fact that the debate has run on for centuries does not mean that equally clear minded Christians could not come to agreement, but that there are spiritual factors that prevent Reformation principles from being accepted. The old Adamic nature loves itself above God and wants to be captain of its own destiny. This, and not God’s lack of clarity on vital issues, is why the conflict continues. If you wish to become convinced of this, take and read.”

-Rick Ritchie, from Modern Reformation Magazine

“I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on…”
Matt Redman

“If there’s anything I know better than anyone, it’s my own work.”
William Stryker, X-Men 2

Luke 21:19

This is my pretty lengthy treatment of the question of eternal security, or “Can I lose my salvation?” Basically my premise is this: there are verses that say we’ll never be lost, and there are verses that say we must persevere to be saved. The point of this entry is to show that these two positions are not in contrast, and that the verses in favor of both are not at odds. The struggle is to reconcile security and perseverence. When encountered with paradox, many Christians cop out by dividing the two elements into two belief systems and fortify their arguments with Scripture that supports them while undermining the significance of the verses that don’t. Reconciling security and perseverence is a mental and spiritual exercise in the likes of reconciling free-will and providence.

Intro

A little over a year ago my friend Amber asked to come over and talk about some doctrinal stuff. She was wrestling with whether or not a person could in fact lose their salvation and wanted my take on it. What ensued was, in retrospect, a disaster. I call it that is because of my entire approach to her questions. My solution was to gather together as many verses as I could that supported the position that you can’t lose your salvation. So I did that and we went through them together. While that’s not a wrong way to approach anyone with questions on the subject, it’s far from being the best way. Verses like John 10:29 where Jesus says that no one can snatch God’s sheep from his hand and Philippians 1:6 where it says that God will finish the work he started in believers are enough to convince me that true believers won’t lose their salvation. However there are verses like Colossians 1:22-23 that say that we will be blameless before God IF we continue in our faith. The book of Hebrews also has two very explicit passages that describe those who fall away from the faith in chapters 6 and 10.

The way I approached Amber is the same way so many Christians approach the subject, and it’s stupid. We collect all the verses that support OUR view and ignore the ones that seem to go against it. We forget that the Bible is God’s Word and that it is wholly consistent. The answer must be found in reconciling these passages. In this debate we have two categories, both of which are scripturally TRUE:

1) You Muse Persevere to the End to be Saved (Colossians 1:21-23, 1 John 1:5-10, 3:3-6, Hebrews 6:4-6, Hebrews 10:26-31).

2) Eternal Security (John 6:38-40, John 10:28-29, Romans 8:28-39, Philippians 1:4-6, 2:12-13, 1 John 2:19).

With regard to this doctrine, Scripture is resolute in two things: 1) that those whom God brings to repentance will never be lost, and 2) that believers must persevere to be saved. The question is this: how do we reconcile these? This debate lies within the greater debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. The belief that believer’s won’t lose their salvation is the P in TULIP which stands for the Perseverence of the Saints. I need to clarify something real quick: many Arminians do believe that you can’t lose your salvation. Historically though, the thought that you can lose your salvation has come from the Arminians, so for the flow of argument, when I refer to Arminians I’m referring to those who don’t agree with eternal security. That being said, let’s continue.

Getting Our Questions Right

I’ve come to dislike the question “Can you lose your salvation?” To me it feels like the youth group kid who wants to know how far he can go with his girlfriend before it becomes sin. His aim isn’t to to whatever he can to please God; it’s to do all he can without pissing him off. That’s what this question feels like. It’s like a way of inquiring about how much we can sin and still be saved. To be fair, I’m not saying that if you word the question this way then your motives are impure. Shoot, I’d argue that even that youth group kid doesn’t always ask his question out of impure motives but rather a misguided focus. Many people will answer the question of how far can you go with the opposite sex by saying “You’ve already gone too far.” That’s a crap answer for the same reason it’d be crap to answer “Can I lose my salvation?” by saying “You already have.” Even still, a misguided focus is a big deal because even the smallest error in our perspective on God could potentially snowball into ungodly ways of living. Instead of asking myself “Can I lose my salvation” I’d prefer to ask myself “Will I make it?” or “Am I saved?” Will I make it to the end? I ask it this way because in so doing, the life of the Christian becomes more about something I’m pursuing rather than something I’m guarding myself against. Don’t mistake me here, we do need to guard ourselves from sin, but we don’t gain Christ by guarding ourselves. We guard ourselves by gaining Christ.

When the Verses Collide

As I’ve already attempted to hammer into your skull, understanding the issue of eternal security is a matter of reconciling truths, not using the same standard of truth against itself. I can’t stress that enough. A Christian is required to preach and teach what the Bible says is true, not what he or she wants it to say is true. The God of the Bible is a God of mystery and paradox. Many things he’s revealed to us. Many things he keeps in secret (Deuteronomy 29:29). Being the control freaks we are, it is in our nature to be driven crazy that we can’t know all there is to know about God. Yet if the God of the universe isn’t beyond human reasoning and comprehension, he really wouldn’t be a God worth serving. But in truth, he holds great mysteries and deep paradoxes. A paradox is a proposition that appears to be self-contradictory but is really not. I think it’s funny how some philosophers belittle Christianity when in reality it is an EXTREMELY philosophical stimulus. I think the problem some philosophers face (along with many Christians) is that paradoxes are unacceptable. But we can’t toss aspects of Christianity we find difficult to understand. Heresies are created this way.

I’ve noticed a VERY common trend in Christianity, and that is the impulse to polarize our interpretations of theology into two distinct and exclusive categories. For instance, with alcohol some people feel drinking is a sin and should be completely abstained from. On the other end, you’ll have some people who will get drunk and claim “freedom in Christ” or those who feel they don’t need to exercise caution when hanging around recovering alcoholics. When it comes to evangelism, I’m amazed at the polar opposites we’ve created. You have confrontational evangelists who will go talk to people in bars or preach on a street corner and relational evangelists who would rather get to know somebody and build a relationship with them and use that to share Christ. And both kinds of evangelists love to bitch about eachother and treat the issue as an either/or issue when in reality maybe there’s room for both. And of course, my favorite polarity is the sovereignty of God and man’s free will. How can man make choices if God is sovereign? Aren’t they exclusive? Many believe they are and build their theology around that. Things can be very difficult to understand and a nightmare to reconcile but that doesn’t mean that they’re illogical. These are paradoxes, or seemingly-contradictory statements.

Matt Chandler from The Village Church warns Christians not to create doctrines to make yourself feel better about God. We love to do that because we’re not always comfortable with an incomprehensible God who has a thing for paradoxes. And what we’ve done when it comes to the issue of eternal security is to decide that it’s too hard to understand that God would say that once you’re saved, you’re saved and then go back and say that you have to persevere of else you’re not saved. So we divide the verses up and create two different doctrines when in reality these two categories of verses are ENTIRELY compatible and not at all contradictory.

The House of Cards

Alright, I think I’ve done enough groundwork and now the question is being asked “Ok, so how does it freakin’ work? How can you possibly reconcile these?” God secures us by causing us to persevere. That’s it. That’s the most simple way I can state it. Alright, let me unpack that.

Some people sometimes call this doctrine the “Preservation of the Saints” instead of “Perseverence of the Saints.” The interesting thing about these two wordings is that they’re two completely different perspectives on the same exact truth. Preservation of the Saints implies that God will preserve his elect while the other says that the elect will persevere to the end. One shows God’s work. The other shows our work. This whole issue is a two-sided coin. One side is divine truth while the other is the human perspective of that divine truth.

What I’m about to say might be offensive, but those who claim they are 1-point, 2-point, 3-point, or 4-point Calvinists are theologically inconsistent. You can logically be only a 5-point Calvinist or a 5-point Arminian. Jacob Arminius didn’t just pick out five random objections against the Reformed churches of Europe. They’re a house of cards. Take one out, and the system collapses. I bring this up because I can’t defend perseverence as a biblical doctrine unless I bring in two other points of Calvinism: unconditional election and irresistible grace. In other words, if you want to believe in “once saved, always saved,” you’ve got to believe in these other two points.

Back to the statement “God secures us by causing us to persevere.” For the sake of my argument, I’m going to reword it this way: “God preserves us by causing us to persevere.” How does he “cause” us to persevere? Philippians 2:13 gives us the answer when it says that it is God who is at work in us giving us the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him. Unless God intervenes and does this, we can’t obey him, and we are unable to please him. Only by the power of God can we obey God. And this implies unconditional election, that God sovereignly chose out of the human race who he would save, because if we are unable to even desire him without his intervention and changing of our hearts, then nobody gets saved unless he does just that. The Arminian counterpart, conditional election states that God elects us based on the fact that he forsees that we will turn to him to be saved. Our election is thus conditioned upon what he forsees in us. The problem with this (among many) is that in this interpretation, good works are both the grounds AND the fruit of election. By good works we come to him and are saved, thus enabling us to do good works. But as John Owen says, something cannot be both the cause and effect of the same thing. That’s like saying the universe created itself.

The immediate Arminian objection here is that I’m classifying asking God for salvation as a “good work.” Not quite what I’m saying. 1 Corinthians 2 states that our human nature does not, will not, and cannot desire or discern spiritual things. Ephesians 2:10 is also important here: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Good works are the product of the Christian being saved. He saves us SO THAT we may do good works, and unless he saves us, we can’t do that. But wait a minute, am I saying that anyone who has not been saved by Jesus Christ is incapable of good works? That would be a pretty bold statement considering that charity organizations exist that are not worked by Christians. I’d have to be pretty stupid to be so bold to say that a non-Christian has never stopped on the side of the road to help someone with a flat tire or paid for someone’s meal who couldn’t afford it. Yet that’s exactly where I’m going. Many non-Christians have done very nice things, but they are incapable of good works.

How do I get off saying that? How can I possibly believe that? Because I’m challenging mankind’s definition of “good.” God’s definition of good is doing all things to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Works are worthy of God only when they are the natural expression of Godly desires. Any work not done specifically to glorify God is not a good work in God’s eyes. Ephesians 2:10 says that we are created IN Christ Jesus for good works as if to say that only by Jesus can we do works that God defines as “good.” So in light of that I ask: if we are able to do good works without Christ, then why is Christ necessary? He wouldn’t be. Isaiah 43:7 says that we are created for God’s glory. He created us to glorify himself. So if you observe that in light of Ephesians 2:10, then we must conclude that we were created to glorify God by doing good works.

Jesus Christ said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul. He also said that a tree is known by its fruit and that the fruit is determined by the root. If mankind is incapable of producing fruit (works), it is because mankind doesn’t possess the root (faith) which grows those fruits.

Finding God’s Elect- The Faith that Works

That God elects and will definitely save some for salvation is not a call to revoke evangelism. This has historically been called “Hyper-Calvinism,” which says that you might as well sit on your couch all day watching football because God’s just gonna save them anyway. Rather, God’s election is the grounds of our evangelism. God does not establish ends without establishing their means. With regards to the elect of God, we have no way of knowing who they are from a distance. We can’t look out into a crowd of people and decide who is elect or not. We don’t know nor are we meant to. The only evidence we have that a person is elected by God for salvation is their response to the Gospel, and their perseverence in their faith. Evangelism is not about making sheep. It’s about finding them. Jesus himself rebuked the Pharisees and told them that the reason they didn’t believe was because they weren’t his sheep (John 10:26) [as opposed to saying "You are not my sheep because you do not believe"].

There’s an almost cliche explanation of perseverence of the saints that goes like this: if you’re saved, you’ll keep fighting. If you give up, you were never saved. That’s exactly right. The proof that we have been saved and have eternal life is our perseverence, or the fruit we show. Salvation consists of two aspects: justification (where we are declared guiltless before God and saved) and sanctification (the process whereby God begins to change us to become more conformed to his image). While these are two distinct parts of salvation, they are inseparable in order to be saved. You can’t go to heaven without being justified, and you can’t go to heaven without being sanctified. If you’re paying attention to what I just said, you should notice a paradox. If justification is when we are saved, then how can I say that you have to have sanctification in order to be saved? In other words, how can something else have to happen in order for us to be saved when we’re promised salvation from the start?

There is only way that this could work, and that’s if justification inherently carried with it the promise or guarantee of sanctification, as if to be sanctified is part of the package God gives us when he justifies us. If we have to be sanctified to be saved, and God saves us when he justifies us, then logically when God saves us he promises to sanctify us. Let me rephrase all that, substituting the word “Faith” in place of justification and “Works” in place of sanctification. Faith carries with it the promise of works. When God gives us faith, he promises that works will follow. Want to know the reason that Christians get so hung up over the Faith/Works debate, why we debate faith vs. works salvation? It’s because we call it faith vs. works. It’s because we treat them as two separate entities and they’re not. They are distinct yes, but not separate, just as the Heads side of a coin is distinct from the Tails side, but is not a different coin altogether. They’re inseparable parts of the salvation promise.

In the New Testament, James will challenge those who seek to separate the two. “Show me your faith apart from your works,” he says, “and I will show you my faith BY my works.” Talking about Abraham, he writes that “[his] faith was completed BY his works.” Paul writes “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to COMPLETION at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). God promises the works that will complete our salvation. He saves us to work, and the work is evidence we are saved. Works are thus essential to salvation, not because they save us, nor because they keep us saved, but because they prove that we’re saved. Keep in mind that when I’m referring to works I’m not merely talking about getting cats out of trees for hot girls or getting cats out of trees for old ladies while hot girls are across the street watching. I’m talking about works that are done for the glory of God.

Many will depart from the faith. From a human point of view, people can abandon their faith. But if the faith that saves us is a faith that works, then to cease working means that they never had the faith, and thus were never saved in the first place. In referring to “antichrists,” John writes “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us (1 John 2:19).” Paul writes “Now I would remind you, brothers of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preacehd to you- unless you believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:1-2).

Our salvation is something we prove. It’s not something we earn or something we keep from losing. We prove that we are one of God’s elect, and that proof comes by our perseverence. This is why Peter will tell the Christians to add to their faith the qualities of virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. For by so doing you will “make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall” (2 Peter 1:10).

“Ok, but…”

How is “proving” that we’re saved any different practically speaking than saying that you have to work to GET saved? That’s a great question, one that I had to wrestle with. The difference between the two lies with WHO your salvation is being proven to. If salvation is something we must prove to God, then we reduce the Christian life to performance-based salvation. Salvation is something that must be proven to ourselves first, and secondly to others. There’s a reason for both.

We must have it proven to ourselves because grace is incomprehensible. I cannot fathom that God loves me and forgave all my sins. As Christians we are still going to sin. The difference between sinning as a Christian and sinning as a lost person is that the Christian doesn’t make a continual practice out of it. To forget God’s radical love for us is to become extremely vulnerable to sin. But this doctrine is the net that catches us as we fall towards the river of doubt. That God still loves us when we sin is what will keep us going. “For the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity” (Proverbs 24:16). By grace we have been saved through faith. It is grace that God gave us salvation when we didn’t deserve it. I question the definition of “grace” for those who believe it is something we can fall from. To “fall from grace” is an oxymoron. It is a contradiction of terms. How do we, by unworth, lose what we were never worthy of to begin with? Now, if you’ve browsed through Galatians 5 lately, you’re likely to put me in check by pointing out that in verse 4 Paul does mention falling from grace. But in context he’s not talking about being in a state of grace and then falling out of it. The whole point of Galatians is to combat the idea that many Galatians were accepting that they are saved by works along with faith. Paul says that if they are to commit themselves to the Mosaic Law, then they are bound to keep it. And should they bind themselves to it, they are abandoning salvation by faith for a salvation by works. God gives us the proof in his Word that we are saved.

The reason we must prove our salvation to others is found in Matthew 5:16- “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” As I said earlier, we are created by God to glorify him by doing good works. Glorifying God is contagious, both to the lost and the saved. I am far more excited about going to God in prayer when others tell me about how God has answered their prayers than when someone tries to guilt trip me into thinking I haven’t been praying enough. The Christians who most impact my life are the ones who show the most joy in God. Glorifying God is contagious because joy is contagious. For the lost, we work to prove to them that Jesus is better than life. We work to prove to them that he IS the way, the truth, and the life. Thus by proving our salvation to others, many will come to know him as savior, and those who already believe will be strengthened.

An artist knows beyond any shadow of doubt that his hand painted the paintings in his studio. He is the one person in the world that authorship of those paintings does not need to be proven to. If there’s anyone we don’t need to prove our salvation to, it’s God. The artist knows his work. Jesus is called the “author” of our salvation and like a good author, he knows his own work. The fact that the Bible gives God all credit for our salvation is more than sufficent to show us that our election is far from being something we prove to God but rather something God proves to us. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs– heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:16-17).

Commands of Promise

Saint Augustine once prayed “God, command what thou wouldst, and grant thou dost command.” In other words: command of us whatever you would, and give us the ability to obey that command. This drove a monk by the name of Pelagius up the wall. He reasoned that a good, holy, and just God would not make commands of his creatures if they were unable to obey them. Moral obligation implies moral capacity he said. Yet Augustine made the point that when humanity fell by sin, God did not lower his own standard of holiness in order to accomodate our weaknesses. If God is holy, why would he? Holiness allows no compromises. So while humanity fell and became corrupted by sin, God’s standards and commands for holiness remained the same, leaving us completely unable to obey the very things God commanded of us. Feeling helpless yet?

So why does God still make commands of us? Andrew Murray was a big help to me here. He wrote, “He knows so well that we are unable to do what is really holy and heavenly, except as He works it in us, that He means His very demands to become promises of what He will do, in watching over and leading us all the day.” Did you catch that? Not one command of God is meant to be obeyed apart from his power. His Spirit assures us that we are children of God (Romans 8:16) and he commands us to work out that salvation and make it sure (Philippians 2:12, 2 Peter 1:10). He proves it to us, we prove it to others.

We must persevere to the end in order to be saved. Make no mistake about that. If Murray is correct, this command to persevere carries with it the promise that God will see to it that we do. Make no mistake about that either. One is a command, the other is merely the promise of fulfilling that command. Oh God, command what you will, and grant whatever you command. Command me to persevere, and preserve me until the end.

Matt Chandler of the Village Church in Dallas, regarding this very issue once said that those who are afraid of “losing their salvation” NEED to be afraid. Much as I love the Chan-Man, I think he’s wrong. To work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and to make our calling and election sure is a lifelong fight. Fear is one of your greatest allies for it is one of the greatest evidences that you are God’s. It’s the proof that you are in fact fighting, and if fighting, alive. Those who are not truly elect will eventually, through interest in the things of the world, forfeit their interests in spiritual things and there will be no room in their hearts for a fear of losing their salvation. This isn’t to say that fear gives you warrant to become spiritually lazy. No, rather, fear is to propel us into greater degrees of devotion. Fear awakens us to the deficiencies in our spiritual lives, that we may turn to God and correct them.

If you’re afraid, take comfort. The dead don’t fear for their health.

Conclusion

There’s a final word I must say and it regards justification. Earlier I mentioned how justification is the utter removal of all your sins, being spotless before God. There’s something else to it though. Justification is not only the removal of sin, its the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus to you. To those who are saved, God looks at you and sees the perfect life lived by his Son Jesus Christ. He never sees us apart from his Son. Christianity is the constant and continual reaping of another person’s reward. Not only are our sins forgiven, but his righteousness is credited towards us. Those who maintain that salvation can be lost do not understand the nature of justification, nor do they know the Word of God. To them I say: follow your beliefs to their conclusion. To say that even ONE PERSON who has EVER been justified has become unjustified is tantamount to saying that Jesus did not live a totally sinless life. For how can God look upon a person who is credited with the life of his Son and reject him unless the life of his Son was not worthy of God’s acceptance? If the Christian is unworthy, then Christ was unworthy. This is damnable. But what of all the people who depart from the faith? There are two explanations. Either you must concede that Christ was not sinless or that his righteousness was never credited to them in the first place. Those whom God saves will persevere.

“Justification,” writes C.J. Mahaney, “is being DECLARED righteous. Sanctification is being MADE righteous- being conformed to the image of Christ.” That we are declared righteous when we’re not righteous is the full essence of grace. Can you lose your salvation? You might as well ask if its possible to exist and not exist at the same time, for that question is really asking if something can and can not exist at the same time (the non-assurance of assurance). While the question has a legitimate answer (no), the very absurdity of it renders it ineffective for attaining anything beyond mere knowledge. In other words, to merely say that you can’t lose your salvation cheapens the very nature of what salvation is and is therefore a stunt to our growth in the Christian life. Many fools sin and sin because they’re under the illusion that salvation is nothing more than a reservation they made in heaven when they were 7 by praying a prayer. The reservation they say will always be there, I can live however I want. But give me a God who loved me when I hated him, a Savior who lived perfectly because of my imperfections so that I be declared righteous when I was anything but, and the question whether or not salvation can be lost will become self-evident, and I will ask myself instead “Am I saved?”

“For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
-Hebrews 10:14

I feel that it is a trait of wisdom to know what is and is not worth fighting over, or for the purposes of this article, what’s worth arguing over. As such I really try to weigh out issues and make the wiser choice of whether or not to use my energy debating things. A couple of nights ago my friend Andrea (who, like me, is a Calvinist and who unlike me is a baller) asked me a question I’ve often wrestled with: is Calvinism worth debating? The Calvinist/Arminian debate has been raging for a long time. Is this debate profitable to our walks with God? Or is it fruitless argument? There are those who want to do nothing BUT debate it, while others scoff at such conversation, calling it juvenile and worthless. Some refuse to discuss it at all.

The best way I can answer this question is to point out what I like to call the Non-Negotiables of Biblical Predestination. Non-Negotiable #1 is this: there IS predestination. You absolutely can’t say “I don’t believe in predestination” and maintain that you hold Scripture to be God’s infallible, inerrant, perfect Word. Paul talks about it. He teaches it. It’s in there, so the question is not “Does it exist?” but rather “What does it mean?” (See Romans 8 and Ephesians 1).

Non-Negotiable #2: Predestination occured before God created the world (Ephesians 1:4).

Non-Negotiable #3: The elect (predestined), and they alone will receive salvation.

If we are to be strict adherents to the Word of God, we must concede these. The question is not “Does God predestine some to heaven and pass over some?” but rather “On what basis does God do this?”

The Arminian Response: Before time began, God foresaw who would accept his universally-offered gift of salvation by their own free-will and chose/predestined/elected those people. We chose God.

The Calvinist Response: Before time began, God chose certain individuals on no other basis than his own pleasure and purpose, and elected those people to salvation. God chose us.

So is it worth debating? Well, let me ask this: are these responses similar enough to be considered virtually the same thing? These are two vastly different interpretations! It would be ridiculous to say that there’s no real difference between us choosing God in our free-will and God choosing us based on nothing we’ve done. But that’s exactly what people are saying when they say that it’s not worth the hassle. I am convinced that my salvation has nothing to do with anything I’ve done. I believe that ultimately it does not depend on my will but on God’s pleasure (Romans 9:16, John 1:12-13, Ephesians 1:6,11,12,14, James 1:18). He rescued me and found me, a man who was not searching for him (Romans 10:20). The only reason I was able to even come to God was because it was granted me to do so (John 6:44, 65; Philippians 1:29). And the only possible way I can even desire or will to do God’s pleasure is because he is causing me to will it (Philippians 2:13). I agree with the beautiful words of the Council of Orange: “It is wholly a gift of God to love God.”

God himself chose me, reached down and saved me. This is entirely NOT the same thing as saying that God paved the way to salvation but waits eagerly on the sidelines hoping, hoping, hoping that I’ll choose that way myself.  This discussion is so full of fruit since it helps us to understand God’s basis for his election, which in turn helps us to understand God himself more fully. 

The L of the TULIP acronym which emphasizes the five points of Calvinism is the letter most people get hung up on when dealing with Calvinism. Limited Atonement, put simply, means that Christ did not die to save the whole world per se, but instead died specifically for the elect. At first it sounds utterly repulsive because we know that “God so loved the world” (John 3:16), and that he “desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Incidentally many could challenge me to reconcile 1 Timothy 2:4 with Calvinism. To this I’d throw the challenge back and ask how it can be reconciled with Arminianism. That’s another blog for another day, but it’s a good springboard to where I’m going.

Over the past two years as I abandoned Arminianism for Calvinism and have done a lot of studying on the subjects, I’ve come to notice something that’s fascinated me. The very things that Arminians abhor about Calvinist theology are the same issues that they must come to terms with concerning Arminianism. For instance, Calvinism is said to be fatalistic because God chooses to save some but not others, so those who are not saved have no chance to be saved at all, and this is unfair. Yet Arminian theology which claims that God’s election of individuals is based on “forseen faith” still demands that who is saved and who is not saved is set in stone. Even by this logic, can you really say that while he may desire all men to be saved, he’s actually trying to save the same people whom he foreknew would not believe?

TULIP rises and falls together. Many people will call themselves “four-point Calvinists,” the point in question being limited atonement. If we’re to follow logical necessity though, we run into serious problems when we try to leave out this point. If you concede all the other points, then you concede that God has elected a group of individuals throughout history to save, that he will save them, and that he will preserve them. How then does he actually make this happen? What are the means by which he accomplishes this? The atonement. He pardons their sins and makes them holy. Who does he do this for? To say that Christ has actually paid for the sins of the whole world begs a serious challenge to our doctrine of hell. If everyone’s sins are paid for, then who goes to hell? What is there to condemn in any single person on this planet? If the elect are those whom God will save, and the atonement is the means by which God saves those whom he will save, then does it not follow that God atones for the sins of his elect and only his elect? Or, to put it another way, when all is said and done and the age has ended, who has Christ’s blood ACTUALLY atoned for?

If we’re to be Biblical, we must concede that there is such a thing as predestination, and that those who are predestined for eternal life are God’s elect. If we adhere to Scripture as authoritative, then this is beyond question. The dispute then revolves around our understanding of the basis by which God elects some to salvation. Calvinists like myself will tell you that he does so purely based on his good pleasure, in accordance with his eternal purpose. Opponents, appalled at the idea that God has set in stone who he will save and who he will not, take comfort in ther interpretation of predestination which says that God looks into the future and forsees who will put their faith in him, and then elects those individuals. This was my view for a long time. But the comfort of making God understandable to the human mind blinds many to two rather clear shortcomings of this view. First off, there’s no scriptural support for it. And before anyone stops reading here to quote Romans 8:29 in a comment, I must ask you to quote Romans 8:29-30: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Foreknowledge here is more than mere knowledge of facts, it is an intimate knowledge. We must realize that those that God does in fact “foreknow,” he predestines, and who he predestines he calls, and who he calls he justifies (saves), and who he justifies he glorifies. In other words, God works each stage out only in the lives of those who he’s worked the previous stage in. To those who say that predestination means that God’s predestined us all, but some choose not to go, this verse says no. He does NOT predestine everyone, but only those whom he foreknew. And this verse also tells us that not everyone is called, at least not in the sense that his elect are called. Many will hear the Gospel who will never believe. It is God’s business to know who his elect are and are not, not ours. That’s his secret will. His revealed will to us is to preach the Gospel to all creation (Mark 16:15) trusting him to work out everything else (see also Deuteronomy 29:29). This is illustrated in the parable of the servants who were instructed to go invite as many people as they could to the wedding feast. Many were invited, but many refused. Why? “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). That is, many are called by men, but few are chosen by God. The number of people who, in the end, will hear the Gospel of Christ far outnumbers the number of those who are actually saved. Christians, God does not “look into” the future. God IS the future! He is the Alpha (beginning) and Omega (end) (Revelation 1:8). He declares the end from the beginning and vows to accomplish all his purpose (Isaiah 46:10).

The second problem with the foreknowledge view is this: even with a more understandable view of how God elects people to salvation, you STILL run into the very same problem you had with Calvinism, namely that it is set in stone firmly who WILL be saved, and who will not be saved. If we logically trace our steps backwards with Arminian theology, we find it to agree with Calvinist theology which says that from before time began, God has elected a group of people to salvation and that he will save them and only them. And if this is true, what then does that mean for the understanding of the atonement? If, as both schools admit, only some are saved, then does the blood of Christ atone for everyone or just the elect? It is by his atonement that his righteousness is imputed on our behalf and we are thus made holy, and so I ask: who is made holy but those whom God has chosen for salvation? THIS is what we mean by limited atonement. Even the doctrine of Conditional Election demands Limited Atonement since election, regardless of its basis, demands that a fixed remnant of humanity will be saved. And as John G. Reisinger writes, “The man who sees nothing particular in the design of the Atonement can’t see or preach Sovereign Election very clearly or strongly. How can he teach that God has ‘chosen a people’ unto Himself in special electing love and at the same time deny that He appointed Christ to act as the substitute for that specific and particular people?” Arminianism ultimately provides no solace from the questions Calvinism begs us to ask, for to be logical in those beliefs demands it.

A final word…

Let it not be said that limited atonement represents a sufficiency of the blood of Christ! To say this is fully worthy is utter damnation for it is to say that those who aren’t saved are those whom Christ COULD NOT save, and this is a heresy from the pits of hell! Brothers and sisters, if a trillion souls have inhabited this planet since its beginning, and if every last one of them save Jesus Christ himself were as treacherous as treacherous can be, his blood is enough blot away every last sin of every last one of those great sinners so that God might look on every last person and see not one sin at all but only the righteousness of Christ credited to their behalf! To preach of limited atonement is not to pollute the preciousness of Christ’s holiness and sacrifice at all! It is only to preach, as any Arminian would agree with, that not every person on this planet will be saved, “for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14).